Justice Department lawyers say they’ll quit if regional offices close

[alp227]

Source: Wash. Post

Dozens of career antitrust lawyers at the Justice Department are likely to quit if the department closes four regional offices as part of budget-cutting measures, according to several of the veteran attorneys.

Department officials this month announced plans to close four regional offices of the department’s antitrust division, in Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas and Philadelphia, and to move 94 attorneys and support staff members to offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and division headquarters in Washington. The plans would allow the department to consolidate operations and focus on larger criminal investigations, and officials vowed to pay relocation costs for lawyers and support staff willing to move.

But career antitrust lawyers affected by the plans said that they were caught off guard and that they believe the plans will result in de facto layoffs as colleagues decide to leave their jobs because they are unwilling or unable to move to larger cities.

“There aren’t a lot of people who’ve been with the division a long time who can pick up and move,” said an antitrust lawyer based in the Philadelphia office. “Many people have families and spouses with jobs where they’re already located. And there’s no assurances that in two years there won’t be further cuts, and then we’ll lose a job we picked up and moved for.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-department-lawyers-say-theyll-quit-if-regional-offices-close/2011/10/18/gIQA0JzNvL_singlePage.html

[Demeter]

1. That is their choice, of course

Most of America, having had no choice about moving to find work, cannot sympathize.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. did you forget the sarcasm thingy?

Uprooting a family can involve more than just one wage-earner's job.

There may be a spouse/patner's job to consider, or should they just divorce?

There may be children's school commitments including residency requirements for in-state college tuition.

There may be family health issues, such as changing doctors for a special needs child or an aging parent for whom the employee or spouse is a caregiver or legal guardian.

Guess I'm not "most of America," since I do sympathize.


Then again, what do we need anti-trust lawyers for? I thought all that regulatory stuff was done away with. :sarcasm:

[Demeter]

8. Do you have any idea how many people left Michigan?

And I don't mean just recently. People who had NO choice in the matter, no option of living off one income and staying put, or going into non-profits to stay employed.

I was not in the least sarcastic. Wall Street has decreed that communities, nay, families! are luxury items, and the peons shall live shattered, fragmentary lives as they scrabble hither and yon for a crust of bread.

I should feel sympathy because that total disregard for people has moved up to lawyers?

What goes around has come around.

http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/pha/osr/CHI/POP/DP00_T1.asp

This graph shows only since 1990---the Clinton population increase, and the W/ Obama decrease....

[Tansy_Gold]

11. Yes, I know how many people have left Michigan

It started long before 1990, too. I was still living in Indiana when the "will the last person out of Michigan turn out the lights?" started going around.

Yes, you should feel sympathy, because you know what it's like.

Suppose there isn't a spouse or partner with a second income. Suppose there's just an aged parent and the choice is between keeping the job and moving 1000 away from that aged parent, or losing retirement benefits, trying to find another job -- any job, because even with non-profits they aren't plentiful -- trying to unload a house that's no longer affordable.

Don't go all tea-party on me, Demeter. Don't get into an "I didn't get any choice, so you can't have any either!" attitude. We should be in solidarity with them because we do know what it's like. And just because they make more than we do, they aren't the .01 percenters.

Besides, what they're saying is that they WILL quit rather than move. They will make the choice rather than be slaves to the same system that screwed Detroit and screwed Akron and screwed South Bend and screwed Kenosha.


Or is now "When they screwed the lawyers, I didn't speak up because I wasn't a lawyer, and they'd already screwed the engineeers."



TG

[Demeter]

13. Say rather "The lawyers screwed us. And now it's their turn"

and they screwed our children and grandchildren, too.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. You're correct, of course.

First get rid of all the lawyers. What do we need them for anyway?

These aren't just the upper-level careerists. These are the support staff, too. This is EVERYONE.

In fact, probably most of these people won't be able to pack up and move. Many of them are probably in the working class salary range who, even with financial assistance to make the move still won't be able to afford it. If they're making $150,000 a year, yeah, maybe. But what about those 30k and 35k people? The records clerks and transcriptionists? I guess you figure they're part of the screwers and never the screwees?

I dunno, but the responses in this thread sound so anti-government I almost wonder if I've wandered off the rez. . . . .

[Scuba]

16. +1

[JDPriestly]

15. They are lawyers. They probably passed the bar in the state in which they

practice law. And it is, most likely, in that state, or a state nearby, where they are assigned as attorneys. I don't know, but it is possible that they would rather continue to live, buy their house and raise their children in a state or in a neighboring state of the state in which they took their bar exams.

Some lawyers take the bar exam more than one or two states, but most don't. Taking a bar exam is not a real pleasant experience.

And if the lawyers know people in the city in which they have been working, they will probably have no problem finding a good job in private practice in antitrust law or some related field no matter how bad the job market. That is because they are coming from the US Attorney's Office.

[Tansy_Gold]

19. That's fine for the lawyers. What about the others? n/t

[JDPriestly]

22. Those who want to move are free to do so I presume.

They are being transferred, not fired.

[kestrel91316]

2. Betcha they are gonna focus ever more resources on the nation's WORST

crime problem: medical cannabis in California.

Sure looks like they are starting a huge crackdown here.

The will of the people be damned, I guess.

[bongbong]

4. Orders

They can't help doing the crackdown. Orders are orders, after all.

Big Pharma, the Alcohol Lobby, and the Banking Lobby (loving the ultra-profitable drug-money laundering) all gave the same order.

[RKP5637]

5. Citizens and their interests don't count anymore. For the most part, we are in the way. n/t

[elleng]

6. Anti-trust division, NOT medical cannabis.

[kestrel91316]

7. So they say. I don't believe a word of it.

[elleng]

12. So you don't understand how the Department of Justice is structured,

how it does its work, like any bureaucracy, I guess.

[bluedigger]

9. It would be a terrible shame to lose so many who have delivered so little for so long.

Maybe we can hire some folks more interested in prosecution than career longevity.

[Demeter]

10. I'm with you

Although, you know the fish rots from the top. They are still employees, not free agents. At least, not entirely.

[TBF]

17. More splitting and hatred for other workers. This only benefits the top 1%. nt

[bluedigger]

20. How do you figure?

This has nothing to do with being anti-worker or turning one against the other. The jobs aren't ending, they are moving and the present holders of the jobs find it inconvenient to move with them. Well, that's part and parcel of working for the Federal Government. One person's loss is another person's opportunity.

And I stand by my previous sentiment, I hope the new workers take better advantage of their opportunity, because I'm pretty sure the 1% were content with the status quo!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. Because most, if not all, of America's anti-trust issues have been solved.

:eyes:

[wordpix]

21. It's tough all over. I can't find work in my small town, either.

When people leave a small town or city, service workers are cut either b/c they aren't needed or the tax base won't support them.

One job I took was 70 mi. away from my home and I had to rent a place near the job and commute home on wkends.

[Sgent]

23. This is bad

these are highly trained, experienced lawyers who will immediately jump to firms making 5X as much and working for the wrong side.